Jio Platforms, Tata Communications, Sify Digital Services and CMS Computers India are among the 19 top tech and cloud service providers which have bid for the government’s tender to procure 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) and make it available for start-ups, researchers and academicians under the ₹10,738 crore IndiaAI Mission.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday said the pre-bid meeting in August witnessed enthusiastic participation from over 50 service providers, including Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs), MSMEs, and Data Centre Service Providers. Following the resolution of pre-bid queries, necessary corrigenda were published, extending the bid submission deadline to November 28.
The mission will be implemented through the IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC) of MeitY.
Democratising AI
The Mission strives to democratise the benefits of AI across all strata of society, bolster India’s leadership in AI, foster technological self-reliance and ensure the ethical and responsible use of AI, the Ministry said.
The bid submission process that opened on Monday (December 2) concluded on the same date.
MeitY said that the technical evaluation committee will now begin evaluating these bids based on the eligibility and technical criteria specified in the RFE document.
“Eligible bidders will be invited to present their proposed solutions during the technical presentation stage. Commercial bids will be opened only for the technically qualified bidders,” it said.
MeitY said that the empanelment will be valid for 36 months, with the option to extend for an additional 12 months based on mutually agreed terms.
The Cabinet in March had approved the India AI mission to build a high-end scalable AI ecosystem in public-private partnership mode in the country. MeitY Secretary, S Krishnan in May had said that domestic companies will get preference adding that the GPUs approved under the mission will be made available in the next 18-24 months.
Some other bidders include CloudThat Technologies, Cyfuture India, I2k2 Networks, Ishan Infotech ,Orient Technologies Limited, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies, Path Infotech, Shezar Web Technologies, Unicloud Labs, Vensysco Technologies and Yotta Data Services.